4 November 2007
No major sectarian-related displacement of people has occurred over the past three months as violence between Sunnis and Shias is ebbing in this war-battered country, the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration said on 3 November.
"We did not register any large-scale displacement nationwide over the past three months that related to sectarian violence except for a few individual cases in some areas of Baghdad and other provinces," Sattar Nawroz, spokesman for the ministry, said.
According to Nawroz, since mid-2007 nearly 3,100 families (about 15,500 individuals) returned to their homes in different areas of the capital, Baghdad. The ministry, which was founded after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, attributed the return of such internally displaced persons (IDPs) to what it says is the success of the joint US-Iraqi security plan in Baghdad, which was launched in February.
Iraqis fleeing homes in droves: Red Crescent
6 November 2007
Iraqis are fleeing their homes in droves and the number of displaced within the war-torn country has reached almost 2.3 million, most of them women and children, the Iraqi Red Crescent said.So is the glass half full, or, say, 9/10 empty?
The organisation's latest report, obtained by AFP on Monday, said 368,479 people had left their homes to escape sectarian violence in September alone.
This brings the total number of internally displaced Iraqis to 2,299,425 since the US-led invasion in 2003, it said, adding that most of these urgently need basic care.
At least another two million Iraqis have fled abroad -- mainly to neighbouring countries, according to UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) figures published in August.
Meanwhile, more than half of the Christians in Iraq have fled the country since the war began.
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